A test for Art.

Heres an interesting aside, a smidgeon of ‘something else’ to add some levity to the usual shenanigans called our preoccupations (ie web / trump / climate).

I’ve taken to looking at art books these last few days, the blanket nothing-ness of Christmas is proving its toll and I need nourishment. Apart from the sumptuous, educating and beautiful six parter Peter Philips ‘Polyphony’ on BBC r3 late evenings not much from the ordinary to engage me radio-wise. However the dreaded Christmas Day was quite good, well done bbc r3. Considering their library of material and skills as broadcasters it really would have taken a great effort to screw it up.

Plenty of art books here, plenty of art too that I’ve made twenty and thirty years ago, lots to engage any conversation if anyone were to visit or get access to my activities. As I’ve stated previously our web hours seldom if ever serves us any art (or images from past decades and centuries) …. of value, yet pick up a book or an encyclopedia and instantly dozens of incredible images, forms and ideas fly into our vision. I’m into planning and architecture too, I suppose all developments of human thought and ability, often the web is like peering through the thinnest of cracks in a broken door yet pick up a book and theres a feast for your mind, you instantly learn new things.

Point of this post is figuring out how to test for Art, how to evaluate a piece of nonsense presented as of merit. A case in point being trying to figure out a household where a family member makes a point to emphasise her new degree yet all around theres utterly nothing to reveal such an interest, walls bare, no book in sight. I think we’ve got a little bit of the emperors new clothes creeping in here. We have tv, we have phones and handy personal transport but does it make us work and study any better … I think not. So where is the Masterwork of this handy person? A masterpiece is a very old term indeed, ask any watchmaker or skilled time served worker of three hundred years ago. It will have carefulness and veer toward perfection; yet I enter the house in question and all I can recall is seeing something that looks likely, a homemade five minute drunken scribble masquerading as art. Depth ability and genuine effort seem in short supply.

My test for Art :-

You should immediately be able to tell which person produced it with only the merest acquaintance of the ppl involved as you enter the home. Which family member is likely to have done this, the six year old now fast asleep, or the demented grannie coping with her last years ? Can we tell ?

Can you instinctively put a name to it, a maker, a style of execution. Usually we can if it is cooking or needlework or handicraft … or why is the adept working so hard to conceal their supposed knowledge and enthusiasm of which I am increasingly sceptical? How much tackle is involved in its production, a work area, if none of these things present then i wonder.

Is this the remains of an art therapy session for someone injured or seeking recovery ? Scribble scribble, colour colour ….

Is this the only thing they’ve ever done now proudly or desperately displayed as a Masterwork; what is the hinterland we are drawing from? None? Ask ‘explain this to me’ … Can they speak for five minutes on this piece … I reckon not. Its all a charade in the particular case I’m thinking of.

What knowledge, insight or craft was entailed in its production, show me your portfolio, your effort. Increasing ability with practice and effort.

What is the dialogue for this piece, references, developments, a body of work, an ongoing conversation, next step ?

Have a child make a copy, could anyone tell the difference?

The answer to this (from my viewpoint a year later) … is go for the jugular … show me your portfolio, your development, your books and notes. Your enthusiasm. Talk to me about it. In other words I’ve been duped and this is why I am so angry about this. These are wannabes and fantasists wishing to impress the girl at the checkout or a passing neighbour. I am mighty vexed its assumed I’ll tag along with the fantasy, I don’t mind ppl acting a part or being pretentious, it generally always looks silly and raises a smile but I do not like it assumed I am taken in by this; trying to weave me into their dumb web. Thats two big scams I can put a name to for the same couple.

This highlights a problem I see more of, ppl kidding us they are something they are not. Its getting worse.

I’m all for people playing around harmlessly and maybe even learning something, hopefully to appreciate the value of books (ie a bound collection of information compiled by an expert) … but what vexes me profoundly is nonsense, non-performance dressed up as something else, a self deluding pretension or mirage of greater things. All my reading, all my effort and I have adults playing as if children to perpetuate a no-hoper blind fantasy.

And once you hear “Oh I don’t read books!” then you know its time to quit.

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Published by climate-change-briefing

Keen .... interested and don't like being fooled. Since I 'turned on' to climate change in Nov 2017 its instantly become all important to me.
So many aspects to consider, loss of sea ice, Arctic methane in its three forms (geological, frozen hydrate and microbial) insane (and deceptive) weather modification programmes, diatom loss (and algae and plankton) therefore loss of Pacific coral, Antarctic ice shelf set to begin collapsing, the methane time bomb, worldwide glacial melting, methane release from permafrost, global warming, Pacific contamination from Fukushima, Jet Stream disturbance, unstoppable feedback loops and the interconnectedness of natural forces and systems .... probable mass extinction etc etc.
I cannot see how there can be such a thing as 'climate change denial'.
I'm very tuned in to being outdoors, I've seen things few other people have ever seen or realised ie plants, animals, signs of our ancient ancestors; rocks, landscape, topography; the microscope, diatoms and algae. And of course the more I learn the greater my humility at how little I know.
Please realise though 2 or 3C sounds nothing it has triggered along with higher CO2 levels our weather systems to go into a self perpetuating feedback mode from a previous 'steady state' and this planets life-forms to be severely thrust into turmoil. Less ice means greater heat absorption, a black algae contributing, jet stream now slit in two and thrusting warm air and damp into the Arctic, These things are real and HAPPENING. Polar bears, the saddest of sights will soon only exist as memory, can you see as many bees in summer? We are losing Arctic and Antarctic ice, at the North Pole it is stupidly over-heated and now exists only as water, you cannot walk there, ie this is now and is now plain fact.
Food production will be vastly hindered, is already inoticeable, also the to be dreaded and increasing chemtrails hinder crop growth, the aluminium we know for fact promotes plant disease, hinders solar energy production and destroys ozone. Aluminium from chemtrails has destroyed waterborne entomology ie insect life, as well as I'm guessing diatoms and algae (and as not yet discussed coral reef destruction, the bryozoanss have lost their diatom partners) .... bees now battle with dementia from aluminium. One part say the lower part of the food chain cannot be taken away without all collapsing. Witness the much under-reported Pacific sea bird collapse of 2015. SAVVY UP - BE AWARE !!!
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